June 25–July 2, 1998
movie shorts
The Opposite of Sex
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Like Wednesday Addams, Christina Ricci's Dedee, the platinum-haired, doll-faced vamp who blazes a trail of destruction through The Opposite of Sex, lives by the deadly quip; ice-cold, invulnerable, she shoots withering remarks like poisoned fishhooks. But unlike Wednesday, Dedee has a sex drive, which makes her more dangerous but more volatile, with more weapons but more weak spots. As the narrator of a twisting tale of manipulation and counter-manipulation, she's purposefully unsympathetic: "I don't have a heart of gold," she warns, "and I don't grow one later." After a while, Dedee seems no more than a sophisticated gloss on the potty-mouthed sitcom kid, in a movie made for people who pretend they don't watch sitcoms.
